My birth story started where every woman’s birth story does: with a positive pregnancy test. I was so happy to be a mama, I thought about how cozy my little baby must be inside of my body at that moment. How tiny, how vulnerable. I was the only thing standing between my baby and a scary world.
I wanted a home birth. I had been present at my mom’s three home births and my sister’s 2 home births. I loved how simple they were -not rushed by anyone’s timeline other than the mom and baby’s. Home birth wasn’t an option for us with our baby’s due date falling during the time of vacation for the midwife in our area who does home births, but that is what lead us to the Coit House with Maura and all of the lovely ladies there.
I remember feeling very overwhelmed by all of the choices I had to make for me and my baby so early on in my pregnancy, but the model of care at the Coit House is supported by education and informed decision making. They provided education and resources and opened the floor for questions and evidence-based answers that helped with the decision making. I thought I knew a lot about pregnancy and childbirth, and I did, but not nearly as much as I know now. Because of these things, I felt pretty confident about giving birth by the time I went into labor.
Monday morning I woke up to mild “twangs” in my abdomen that were 12 minutes apart. Throughout the day they stayed 12 minutes apart but intensified. I had an appointment at the midwife and none of us were confident that I was in labor, I left with a “Maybe I’ll see you soon!”. I went to work to distract myself and keep busy, then by 4pm the contractions were getting closer together -maybe 8 minutes apart. By 8 when I tried to go sleep they decided to ramp up: no sleep this night, it was time to have a baby. Things moved pretty quickly, I was bent over my birth ball breathing through my contractions and telling my husband to sleep if he could because one of us needed our wits about us! At 12:30am (Tuesday) my contractions reached 4:1:1 and my water broke at just about the same time. I was GBS+ so I was supposed to go in to receive an IV at 330ish. I think we called Maura back at 2 and said I needed to come in, my contractions were right on top of each other and I was starting to feel the urge to push.
We got to the Coit House at about 2:45 (I was slow to get out the door, stopping for contractions and throwing up in my trusty puke-bucket) and walking into the birth room, with the water running in the tub, was the most comforting feeling ever. I was breathing through the contractions -apparently so well that nobody could tell how close I was to pushing out the baby! She checked me and I was 9-10cm dilated and I started pushing almost immediately after that. The IV never made it into my arm.
I got in the tub and I pushed for an hour -my husband and my Doulas made this a luxury birthing experience! Water sips when I wasn’t pushing, the prickly balls you hold in your hands while pushing, lavender oil, a fan, I think someone was massaging my back, oh my gosh it was great!
Anyways, after about an hour of pushing, our baby boy, Fyodor, came out with his adorably squishy face, a cone head, and a beautiful little mop of hair. We got situated in the bed for our checkups and some five-star waffles. Fyodor was having trouble latching and his blood sugar was a bit low. Ali, one of our beautiful doulas, gave us a little course on breastfeeding and we got him to latch and eat enough to bring his blood sugar back up. We went home to sleep! Kind’ve short and sweet, but incredibly beautiful! Now I have this little munchkin that means the world to me.
The Coit House offers another vital thing for our postpartum journey: community. We met couples having babies in the same month as us and we go to the Mother’s Circle at the Coit House and we’ve found support in places we didn’t know we needed -and the opportunity to give support where we can.
